The main track is solid and the voice work for each character is well done, so that’s a plus. On the audio front, things are pleasant but like I mentioned with the graphics, nothing really jumps out and grabs you. Inside each dungeon though, there are multiple different secret directions that you can take, opening up what looks on paper like a fairly straight forward dungeon and giving it a bit of variety.
TALES OF HEARTS EPISODE 1 FREE
The world map that you have to explore is downright ugly and fairly barren, with a feeling of free roaming available, but with the actuality that there’s not really much to do while roaming. There is nothing here that really jumps out at you and the cinematic cutscenes look fairly good but unspectacular. Graphically speaking, Tales of Hearts R looks OK on the Vita, with some good looking menu’s and character models that go along with basic but good looking towns. Outside of all that combat, players will also have the ability to find ingredients throughout their travels that they can use to cook up dishes that boosts things like your healing power or attack power. The system is set in place so that you have complete control on how each of your characters level up and exactly how they perform in battle. Whether you want to enable the ability to do more damage with attacks or better guard against magic attacks, it is completely up to you. Each skill you unlock has a point total assigned to it and each character can only spend a certain amount of points on assigning skills, so you can mix and match these skills to your hearts content.
TALES OF HEARTS EPISODE 1 UPGRADE
These points are used to upgrade areas of your characters Soma’s in five different categories such as Sincerity and Belief, unlocking new artes, skills, and weapons. Getting the most out of combat and your characters boils down to how you spend your experience points. Even with all this going for it, the battles are still fairly simple to get through and often times don’t bring near enough of a challenge. It’s not just you that will attempt to fight smart, as your enemies will try and fan out to avoid one attack hitting multiple enemies and will look to attack healers whenever they can. It is a great system that allows players to get exactly what they want out of their teammates, setting up a perfect combat team to take on any situation. The AI controlled teammates follow strict guidelines that you set to a tee, so tell one to sit back and only focus on healing and that is exactly what they will do. You are given “free roam” inside these fights, allowing you to run away from trouble and set up your next attack should you need to. Players are given control of one character with three AI controlled characters fighting alongside you in a round battle arena for each fight. Let’s Fight!Ĭombat has been given a huge facelift from it’s original DS release, bringing in the Tales of combat that people just can’t get enough of. The Japanese voice work will throw off some who don’t like to read but really shouldn’t, as all the voices really fit their character counterparts and feels more authentic.
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It’s bad enough that I feel Ludger Kresnik from Tales of Xillia 2 was a better lead and he was a mute! The story is told through Japanese voice acting with English subtitles and the patented Tales of character optional dialogue parts where character portraits show up on screen to give more back story on events happening in the game. Thankfully he is helped off the bat by a strong supporting cast. The biggest culprit here is Kor, the main protagonist, who just isn’t developed enough to really sell the story. While it has a really good message built into it, I felt that the characters weren’t as strong as previous titles like Abyss, Xillia, or Graces F.
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The story in Tales of Hearts R has a really great concept and a few really good characters, but for me it wasn’t the strongest story delivery in the series. For those who might be confused about it, the Spiria is like the inner spirit of people, which is used to activate their Soma into a weapon. To do this, Kor and his group must find each shard, which is usually lodged into person, and dive into that person’s Spiria to retrieve it.
![tales of hearts episode 1 tales of hearts episode 1](https://www.overlyanimated.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ladybug-hearthunter_recap.png)
Almost immediately after they meet, Kohaku’s Spiria is shattered into many different pieces and it is up to Kor, Hisui, and a cast of characters to hunt down these missing pieces and restore Kohaku’s Spiria to it’s complete state. Tales of Hearts R puts gamers in the shoes of the epically named Kor Meteor, a young somatic who just lost his only family member, and comes across fellow somatic’s Kohaku and Hisui, who are fleeing from a powerful being set on doing something nefarious.